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A matter of outlook on life.

ladyattisladyattis Member Posts: 1,273

I'm asking this question in light of some of the responses to the posts I've made in threads of the legal/political sort seem to not jive with some folks here. The question is rather simple: do you see people on the whole as good or evil. I ask this because I believe the largest logical error is to assume that people on the whole are either good or evil rather than just people in the same fashion make similar assumptions about other things in Nature.


-- Brede

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Comments

  • arvainisarvainis Member Posts: 548

    Now you know why evil will always triumph, because good is dumb! ~ Darth Helmet

    "Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves." ~ Ronald Reagan

  • bluberryhazebluberryhaze Member Posts: 1,702

    i would say world population, people as a whole are more good than not. but the line of good and bad can get fuzzy, blurred depending on your enviroment

    -I will subtlety invade your psyche-

  • BigdavoBigdavo Member UncommonPosts: 1,863

    Hard to say, good and evil are products of social values, however take away these social values and do you still have good and evil?

    Imagine being thrown into complete anarchy, no parents, friends or family, everyone for themself and no memory of pre-anarchy, good and evil would cease to exist until some form of society emerges.

    So my option is Neither.

    O_o o_O

  • ladyattisladyattis Member Posts: 1,273

    To me, good and evil are givens for the nature of rational beings is to judge the value of a given thing or action. What I don't agree with is that we're in-born with any values. And that's why I believe we're born neither good or evil, rather we learn from observation and actions we choose to instigate what is good and evil.


    -- Brede

  • CactusmanXCactusmanX Member Posts: 2,218

    Good and evil only exist as opinion, no one is good nor evil, nor any action good or evil, things just are.

    People are biological machines that basically have programming to make them act in certain ways and have certain goals, like live, eat, socialize etc., they also develope other goals and methods of acting by interacting in their environment, being other people or just nature, when these are deprived or threatened somehow people deem that as evil.  This is not to say that these actions are inherently good or bad just that it is percieved that way.

    The universe is an amoral place, good and evil are inventions of man.

    Don't you worry little buddy. You're dealing with a man of honor. However, honor requires a higher percentage of profit

  • ladyattisladyattis Member Posts: 1,273


    Originally posted by CactusmanX
    Good and evil only exist as opinion, no one is good nor evil, nor any action good or evil, things just are.

    I would disagree due to the fact that what is good for us follows from what improves our lives either quality-wise or quantity-wise (or even both). Good and evil in this regard follow in kind. And like truth, they conform to our nature of being living beings.


    People are biological machines that basically have programming to make them act in certain ways and have certain goals, like live, eat, socialize etc., they also develop other goals and methods of acting by interacting in their environment, being other people or just nature, when these are deprived or threatened somehow people deem that as evil. This is not to say that these actions are inherently good or bad just that it is percieved that way.
    The universe is an amoral place, good and evil are inventions of man.

    People are not necessarily mechanical nor [philosophically/metaphysically] 'atomic' in their nature, in fact the entire Universe as we know it isn't either. It's a strange world when you delve into physics and mathematics, finding out that all the traditional assumptions of Cartesian Mechanicism are wrong (especially if you delve into Chaos Theory and its applications in climate studies). Also, the universe is amoral, but humans are im/moral because we have a mind to grasp it. As such one cannot attempt to state that the mind is magically aetheric and inapplicable to the real world in regards to those beings that have one, just as much I cannot state that flight does not exist in birds because the whole of the Universe doesn't fly. When one accepts that the mind exists then one accepts that the functions of the mind exist in turn (ethics and the like).


    -- Brede

  • VyethVyeth Member UncommonPosts: 1,461

    The human is just as nuetral as the rest of the inhabitants of the food chain.. We have the ability to align ourselves and change that alignment on a whim, and without thought or reason. We are capable of the best good and the worst evil.. We are able to bend like nothing else. We can change our mental states in seconds and carry a whole new mindset and personality at a moments notice.. Popes (the so-called good) can become "bad" or "evil" and rape young males.. Doctors, Nurses (so called "good" life saving humans) can become "bad" or "evil" and commit silent murder over the surgery table or through medication overdose. Pastors can steal from the church funds... etc etc..

    Good and Evil are brands.. There is no definition.. We are nuetral till another human brands us OR we brand ourselves..

    We are bi-pedal animals that just so happen to rule the world..

  • VardiaVardia Member Posts: 40

    I chose good :)  My experience with life so far has been that yes, there are bad people out there, and I've gotten hurt before BUT most people are good, with good intentions at least.  Good intentions only get you so far of course... because ignorance and fear of different/unknown things can cause people to do horrible things (even though the intention might be to protect themselves or others).  Life is crazy :)  There will always be crappy people... and there will always be good people :) 

     

  • CactusmanXCactusmanX Member Posts: 2,218
    Originally posted by ladyattis


     




    I would disagree due to the fact that what is good for us follows from what improves our lives either quality-wise or quantity-wise (or even both). Good and evil in this regard follow in kind. And like truth, they conform to our nature of being living beings.
    What we deem good is what we feel improves our lives, good and evil are subjective truths, may be true for that particular person but it is a projection of that person's desires, likes and dislikes.  People may feel the killing of another to be a bad thing but killing in and of itself is not good nor evil, it is not even a trait that can be observed without first developing a system of values to judge it.  Widely held opinion is still opinion.

     
     
     
    People are not necessarily mechanical nor [philosophically/metaphysically] 'atomic' in their nature, in fact the entire Universe as we know it isn't either. It's a strange world when you delve into physics and mathematics, finding out that all the traditional assumptions of Cartesian Mechanicism are wrong (especially if you delve into Chaos Theory and its applications in climate studies). Also, the universe is amoral, but humans are im/moral because we have a mind to grasp it.
    It is not so much an issue of grasping morality as it is creating morality, humans like all animals have wants and desires, unlike other animals we can comunicate these ideas and process hypothetical situations, so we can think on broader terms, really all humans have done is take the same primordial dires of life, (food, living, sex so on) and turned the focus not only toward the individual but the group as well.  While it takes a logical mind to organize any system, morality is a basic and emotionally driven concept.  The difference between us and a squirrel is the squirrel just reacts to "bad" and "good" things, humans  not only react but also declare that "good" things should be done and "bad" things should not be done, that is what morality is, a statement or command of desire.
    As such one cannot attempt to state that the mind is magically aetheric and inapplicable to the real world in regards to those beings that have one, just as much I cannot state that flight does not exist in birds because the whole of the Universe doesn't fly. When one accepts that the mind exists then one accepts that the functions of the mind exist in turn (ethics and the like).



    Of course the brain can form a system of ethics, just like it can form tastes in music and art, but it does not make how the brain percieves things to be actually true, I may think a picture is beautiful but the picture is not actually beautiful, that is how I percieve it, same with morality and ethics.  The function of the brain is the organize the functions of the body so the organism can continue living, this does not mean living is a good thing and should be done, organisms percieve it that way because through natural selection the only animals that would continue to live are the ones that have a desire to do so, same with breeding.  Ethics are useful to humans as a survival mechanism that promotes the ability to live and the comfort of most of the organisms in the group, but still ethics do not exist outside of our minds, so it is impossible to say something is good or bad based on fact, it is an opinion.

     

    Don't you worry little buddy. You're dealing with a man of honor. However, honor requires a higher percentage of profit

  • HYPERI0NHYPERI0N Member Posts: 3,515
    Originally posted by bluberryhaze


    i would say world population, people as a whole are more good than not. but the line of good and bad can get fuzzy, blurred depending on your enviroment

    You mean like in Iraq for the common citizens of Iraq?

    Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981

  • EcranomicalEcranomical Member Posts: 326

    Is this a question of potential?

    I believe everyone is born good, but what happens after that has a great deal of influence.

  • Par-SalianPar-Salian Member Posts: 284

    Good and evil both have religious overtones and are open to the interpretation of the reader.  An Atheist may be considered evil by Christians, but they embrace a pro-life advocate as good.  A Muslim may consider a Jew to be evil but view suicide bombing as good. 

    I think the majority of people want to co-exist peacefully and, as such, live by a set of standards that are perceived as good.  However, those same people will be likely to perform an evil deed if they think it will benefit them and not disrupt their lifestyle.

  • VampirVampir Member Posts: 4,239

    america was founded by people who believed people were evil.

    Yes the puritans were believers in inate depravity.

    I believe its the case because put people in this situation.

     

    a pile of money is lying on the street one someone's way home, unattended no one around, no camera's no nothing.

    a majority would take it and never think about if it was money someone needed for bills, or feeding their children, etc.

     

     

    image

    98% of the teenage population does or has tried smoking pot. If you''re one of the 2% who hasn''t, copy & paste this in your signature.

  • ladyattisladyattis Member Posts: 1,273


    Originally posted by CactusmanX
    What we deem good is what we feel improves our lives, good and evil are subjective truths, may be true for that particular person but it is a projection of that person's desires, likes and dislikes. People may feel the killing of another to be a bad thing but killing in and of itself is not good nor evil, it is not even a trait that can be observed without first developing a system of values to judge it. Widely held opinion is still opinion.

    Should a wound be cleaned to save a person's life? Right or wrong?
    Does a building need a foundation for it to be stable? Right or wrong?
    Do you need to mix the ingredients of a given recipe and prepared a certain manner to be completed? Right or wrong?

    If you think reality is subjective then you seem to not understand reality. Things happen in certain ways, morality follow a similar fashion about the human condition. You cannot state that because there are disagreements about preference than there's no objectivity that can be formed about morality. It is not subjective that murder or the initiation of force is wrong because the converse being the assumption that is not wrong would lead to consequences that are anti-life (human). As such we can also formulate theories about the nature of what is right and what is wrong, we cannot formulate theories about what ice cream seems to taste the best (beyond biology). One forms from the rationality of thinking agents and the latter is formed from a non-consequential series of decisions.

    It is not so much an issue of grasping morality as it is creating morality, humans like all animals have wants and desires, unlike other animals we can comunicate these ideas and process hypothetical situations, so we can think on broader terms, really all humans have done is take the same primordial dires of life, (food, living, sex so on) and turned the focus not only toward the individual but the group as well. While it takes a logical mind to organize any system, morality is a basic and emotionally driven concept. The difference between us and a squirrel is the squirrel just reacts to "bad" and "good" things, humans not only react but also declare that "good" things should be done and "bad" things should not be done, that is what morality is, a statement or command of desire.

    No morality is never emotionally driven by the fact that we can point out features of why something is right or wrong without consideration of emotional states. A classic example of this is the examination of theft and property. We know by function property is a moral feature of civilization due to the fact that no one person inherently has the right to impede the life another, and conversely that another cannot use said property to do so kind. Otherwise we see a series of consequences that devolve all social engagements into a state or series of states of chaos.

    Of course the brain can form a system of ethics, just like it can form tastes in music and art, but it does not make how the brain percieves things to be actually true, I may think a picture is beautiful but the picture is not actually beautiful, that is how I percieve it, same with morality and ethics.

    Error: perception != reality. Epistemology != metaphysical states.

    Why I'm pointing these errors out is the fact that you're asserting an epistemological state of the mind must be equal to a metaphysical state outside of said mind. Beauty is of the mind and the mind is a real thing, but those properties cannot be transposed to non-mind entities/systems/etc. You seem to learn to distinguish that fact or you'll wind up calling an orange an onion.

    The function of the brain is the organize the functions of the body so the organism can continue living, this does not mean living is a good thing and should be done, organisms percieve it that way because through natural selection the only animals that would continue to live are the ones that have a desire to do so, same with breeding. (Incorrect, the brain has little function over the organ systems. In fact the majority of living things exist without brains like ours that can live and procreate just fine.)

    Ethics are useful to humans as a survival mechanism that promotes the ability to live and the comfort of most of the organisms in the group, but still ethics do not exist outside of our minds, so it is impossible to say something is good or bad based on fact, it is an opinion.

    Ethics does not need to exist outside of the mind to be true. Nor does it need to exist outside of the mind to be objective. For example, science is objective, but science has no material existence. Therefore, by your reasoning science is subjective. That doesn't follow by virtue of the fact that science is a methodology that produces invariant results. The same follows for ethics and metaphysics. Only those that disregard the nature of the mind as a functional property of an organism like us will make a similar mistake as you have done so far.

    Here's how it works then: morality is the objective analysis of human action within the context of living (consequence and virtue-based) due to the fact that humans cannot exist in a state without utilizing said mind for their survival. Also, the mind is never subjective by virtue that light is neither subjective in that a property that is dependent does not imply in itself that is either arbitrary, fickle, or subjective (meaning, if something exists due to the existence of a primary like matter or energy, that doesn't make it any less real, it simply means it depends on conditions for it exist unlike primaries (which exist unconditionally)).

    -- Brede
  • ZDPhoenixZDPhoenix Member UncommonPosts: 218

    I saw people as predominately good when I was young, mostly bad in my teens; and now... after running a business I think neither.

    I've been a scum bag before in my life. And a ne'er do well in the past too. I've also done great things to help people in need. I think humanity is just that. A content medium.  Somewhere in between; and that we as individuals become good, bad or both through our actions and motives. Mental Evolution.

    In a complex answer form though: I think we as a global community are neither, leaning towards good/courteous/orderly.

  • BigdavoBigdavo Member UncommonPosts: 1,863

    Originally posted by Vampir


    america was founded by people who believed people were evil.
    Yes the puritans were believers in inate depravity.
    I believe its the case because put people in this situation.
     
    a pile of money is lying on the street one someone's way home, unattended no one around, no camera's no nothing.
    a majority would take it and never think about if it was money someone needed for bills, or feeding their children, etc.
     
     

    I get what you're trying to say with the example, but seriously even if you wanted to turn the money in, or notify authorities to make some sort of announcement, how could anyone prove it belonged to them and how could you trust them to be telling the truth.

    If I knew who it belonged to, you could consider that an act of evil, unless they were an asshole or something, however the example you have given is simple logic - would I rather have the money or give it to the government?

    O_o o_O

  • nurglesnurgles Member Posts: 840

    well i don't conceed that there is absolute good or evil, and i do think that morality is inherently subjective. so to steal is evil, but to steal to feed your child when you are a Jewish family hiding in Nazi occupied Poland?

    on the question at hand, i think people will generally be 'good' when they can visualise the direct outcomes of their actions. However people need a defence against the fact of their inability to help everyone. You can't help everyone so you limit yourself in who you help. There are times when helping those you choose too comes at others expense.

  • nurglesnurgles Member Posts: 840

    Originally posted by ladyattis



    Ethics does not need to exist outside of the mind to be true. Nor does it need to exist outside of the mind to be objective. For example, science is objective, but science has no material existence. Therefore, by your reasoning science is subjective.
     
    science is not objective, for scientific method to be applied it needs an observer, and there is no objective observer.

    science is intrinsicly subjective, this is how it propogates so well, i can tell you of an experiment and you can can go off and confirm or deny it through your observation, when many people reach a consensus it may seem to be an objective truth but it is not unreasonable that it is an inaccurate truth that needs more investigation as problems come to light.

    just because at this time there is a scientific consensus does not make it an objective truth. Objective truths are the worst enemy of science as it thrives on the development of  competing abstracts used to predict future subjective observations.

  • CactusmanXCactusmanX Member Posts: 2,218
    Originally posted by ladyattis


     




    Should a wound be cleaned to save a person's life? Right or wrong?

    Does a building need a foundation for it to be stable? Right or wrong?

    Do you need to mix the ingredients of a given recipe and prepared a certain manner to be completed? Right or wrong?
    Don't confuse right and wrong with correct or incorrect, right and wrong are for moral arguements about what should be done for morality sake.  Correct or incorrect is more of an action A results in outcome B type statement.  So yeah to save a person's life you may need to clean the wound, but it is a stretch to say that logically we should save their life in the first place.




    If you think reality is subjective then you seem to not understand reality. Things happen in certain ways, morality follow a similar fashion about the human condition. You cannot state that because there are disagreements about preference than there's no objectivity that can be formed about morality.
    Does anybody understand reality, we only view things from our perspective it makes it impossible to be completely objective, we may try to think logically and observe things from many perspectives, but still.  Morality is not objective because it relies on projection of a value system onto things.  If you stripped away all feeling from a person and made them observe a tree they would report it's physical properties, if we did this with multiple people they would report the same things.  In a completely emotionless state observing a killing would result in data about the physical action but nothing about what should or should not be done, this is because without developing personal preferences you cannot judge should or should not, because they do not exist.
     It is not subjective that murder or the initiation of force is wrong because the converse being the assumption that is not wrong would lead to consequences that are anti-life (human).
    So why is this a bad thing, you make the assumption that people being killed is bad, why?  Just because you and most everyone does not want to be killed or for other people to be killed does not mean it isn't subjective, the object, the act of killing is without morality, your brain interepts it in a certain way.
     As such we can also formulate theories about the nature of what is right and what is wrong, we cannot formulate theories about what ice cream seems to taste the best (beyond biology). One forms from the rationality of thinking agents and the latter is formed from a non-consequential series of decisions.
    Again we can determine correct or incorrect but not right or wrong, that is like the taste of the ice cream, we can determine what people like the best but that does not mean it should be done/made.
    No morality is never emotionally driven by the fact that we can point out features of why something is right or wrong without consideration of emotional states. A classic example of this is the examination of theft and property. We know by function property is a moral feature of civilization due to the fact that no one person inherently has the right to impede the life another, and conversely that another cannot use said property to do so kind. Otherwise we see a series of consequences that devolve all social engagements into a state or series of states of chaos.
    There is nothing rational about that, consequences do not make things right or wrong, like I said we deem things bad if they do not please us.  We do not like our things stolen so we call it bad and say it shouldn't be done.  Theft and chaos are not inherently right or wrong.  Also this is based on emotion, theft makes us upset because as animals we like territory as it provides security and pride, when it is taken we get angry.  What that is is taking a common set of moral judgements and then developing a rational system to organize them, but the core is an emotionally driven goal.


    Error: perception != reality. Epistemology != metaphysical states.



    Why I'm pointing these errors out is the fact that you're asserting an epistemological state of the mind must be equal to a metaphysical state outside of said mind. Beauty is of the mind and the mind is a real thing, but those properties cannot be transposed to non-mind entities/systems/etc. You seem to learn to distinguish that fact or you'll wind up calling an orange an onion.
    Yay metaphysics, perhaps the most pointless concept ever created.  Using squishy reasoning does not detract from my perceptions, my judging of things to have no correlation outside of myself.  It isn't the same as calling an orange an onion, they are two distinct physical objects.  Saying that what I feel is wrong is not actually wrong is correct because wrong has no substance in the realworld.  If you accept the concept of metaphysics then you could argue that how we percieve objects to be is what they are, but then again metaphysics relies on nonphysical things being true and existing.
    Ethics does not need to exist outside of the mind to be true. Nor does it need to exist outside of the mind to be objective. For example, science is objective, but science has no material existence. Therefore, by your reasoning science is subjective.
    Actually ethics do need to exist outside the body to be objective and true.  Science is subjective and it does not exist, it is a concept of how humans should gather information, it is an abstraction and a judge of value.
     That doesn't follow by virtue of the fact that science is a methodology that produces invariant results. The same follows for ethics and metaphysics. Only those that disregard the nature of the mind as a functional property of an organism like us will make a similar mistake as you have done so far.
    But science does produce variant results, truth is determined by consensus.  Just like ethics and metaphysics, if everyone is useing the same rules to judge by then they will have similar results.  The big difference is science deals with the physical, ethics and metaphysics deal with the incorporal, so while the scienctific method is subjective what you observe is more objective, not completely, ethics and metaphics are inobservable so you are left with a subjective ruleset.  Likewise the mind is an abstraction, the brain isn't and I was correct about what the brain does, it controls most the functions of the body, movement, interpereting eyesight and hearing, releasing hormones to cause growth, fight flight response etc.
    Here's how it works then: morality is the objective analysis of human action within the context of living (consequence and virtue-based) due to the fact that humans cannot exist in a state without utilizing said mind for their survival. Also, the mind is never subjective by virtue that light is neither subjective in that a property that is dependent does not imply in itself that is either arbitrary, fickle, or subjective (meaning, if something exists due to the existence of a primary like matter or energy, that doesn't make it any less real, it simply means it depends on conditions for it exist unlike primaries (which exist unconditionally)).
    The brain is like a computer is creates priorities based on commands it is given.  The reason my computer removes adware but keeps WoW, is because I told it to.  The brain too operates on commands, the commander being natural selection.  When you judge some action as being bad it is because from an evolutionary standpoint that action does not contribute to the survival or health of the organism.  These commands are not good or bad they merely are there to continue living, living in and of itself is not good or bad, life just occured with no set goal or value. killing is like a virus, it is bad because your built in commands tell you it is, but a virus is not bad is it, it is just a program, same with killing, it is just an action.  The brain can objectively analyse things to be good or bad, but only within the confinds of a value system, without a goal is can't determine what should and should not be done.  The thing is this value system is not existant in anything other than the persons head, just beacuse they can judge something good or bad does not mean the object has the physical property of being good or bad, morals are subjective.

     

    Don't you worry little buddy. You're dealing with a man of honor. However, honor requires a higher percentage of profit

  • ladyattisladyattis Member Posts: 1,273


    Don't confuse right and wrong with correct or incorrect, right and wrong are for moral arguements about what should be done for morality sake. Correct or incorrect is more of an action A results in outcome B type statement. So yeah to save a person's life you may need to clean the wound, but it is a stretch to say that logically we should save their life in the first place.

    Actually, they're logically equivalent, especially if you take their Boolean values as a given.

    Does anybody understand reality, we only view things from our perspective it makes it impossible to be completely objective, we may try to think logically and observe things from many perspectives, but still.

    Again, we do know reality and just because we can't directly detect every state that's going on everywhere else does not make any judgment call at any time any less objective. Objective never has and never will mean absolute as you are asserting implicitly.

    [Morality is not objective because it relies on projection of a value system onto things.

    It is since I can reference things outside myself in regards to states and consequences.

    If you stripped away all feeling from a person and made them observe a tree they would report it's physical properties, if we did this with multiple people they would report the same things.

    Feelings have much to do with ethics as they have to do with literature, which is almost zero. Or I should state it more exacting: feelings are inconsequential to ethics. Why? Because logic doesn't work on feelings, and ethics always depends on logic. How so, you might ask. It's pretty simple, anything that is in the form of an argument always depends on logic as a means to frame it. Whether it's an argument about the truth of Existence or the truth of the average weight of chicken eggs, it always depends on the factors found in logic to test them.

    In a completely emotionless state observing a killing would result in data about the physical action but nothing about what should or should not be done, this is because without developing personal preferences you cannot judge should or should not, because they do not exist.

    Actually, a logical being could still see killing as bad. Why? Because the consequences of killing are obvious: non-existence. Also, you're confusing killing with murdering. Murdering is the act of intiating violent force (direct or otherwise) to end the life of another living being. Notably, living beings that can think. And it must be done in direct conflict to the will of said living being's own actions (meaning you can't murder someone who asked you to kill them because they're in so much pain from some wasting disease...).

    There is nothing rational about that, consequences do not make things right or wrong, like I said we deem things bad if they do not please us.

    Nope, we deem things bad/evil when they are in conflict with our primary function: living. You cannot exist for long if your ethics wind up wiping you out of the game of life. You seem to have a very ignorant view of how ethical theories work. Feelings are the after-effect, the report as it were, of the events/actions related to an ethical situation (which is all situations for a human being).

    Theft and chaos are not inherently right or wrong.

    Then why is it universally known among all human beings that theft is wrong? Also, I can tell you why it is: because no one would accrue wealth. That's a functionalist argument against theft, btw, and it's never wrong as every significant civilization has always had institutions that respected property and punished thieves. That's a given to the human species. As for the inherent wrongness, by what definition do you call objective wrongness inherent? Do you mean 'atomically' in as much as it is a Prime Essence (Aristotlean/Platonic) or inherent as it is an invariant consequence of an argument based on logic? If you mean the former, you are correct, if you mean the latter you are wrong. On the latter I submit that if you cannot define things within regard to logic then it cannot be argued. Yet, we can frame all ethical situations within logic, therefore they can be argued, and thus can be proven right or wrong. The same follows for all arguments and even knowledge itself.

    Yay metaphysics, perhaps the most pointless concept ever created. Using squishy reasoning does not detract from my perceptions, my judging of things to have no correlation outside of myself. It isn't the same as calling an orange an onion, they are two distinct physical objects.

    The fact you make such a diversion and never back it up with evidence proves something to me: you're not interested in learning. Metaphysics is the study of the primary functions of reality. A classic example of this is the law of identity (a thing is itself or A is A). If you think it's squishy, then please turn off your PC right now and turn in all your technology, because it's all based on the law of identity. And that includes even the in-door plumbing and TV set. (btw, I'm being a smart aleck, but you're being silly and not really objective)

    ...while the scienctific method is subjective what you observe is more objective...

    No, you can't never get from subjective to objective in any sort of logic. Here's why. The consequential data has no means to be demarcated as objective as you claim because you start from subjective as the originate for the so-called objective 'data.' Essentially, it becomes a problem of how do you know by subjective means that something is objective? You can't if we start from your assumptions. In reality, science is always objective, period and end of story. The same goes for ethics because we start from invariant premises which are metaphysical primaries (aka law of identity and law of causality) to get invariant consequences. Also, science is predictive, thus we can make invariant conclusions then test from them to see if the premises lead to said conclusions. In essence, all knowledge by the laws of identity and causality allow for even science and ethics to be objective (because we're something (identified) and other things are something else (identified)).

    The brain is like a computer is creates priorities based on commands it is given.

    Let me stop you right here. The brain is not equivalent to the electronic computer, ever. I am a CS major with a focus on AI theory. You need to stop reading the pop science magazines, okay? The brain is analog. The computer is digital. That is enough in itself to make them different. But lets go further, what is the bit 'stream' of the brain? There is none, not even in the electrical impulses that are instigated by hormones activating neurons seem to correlate to any 'string' of impulses. It's pretty clear from the standpoint of neurology that the brain operates on an emergent principle that has little to do with the individual neurons. This fact is what makes a brain unlike a computer. A computer is easily reducible to its circuitry, the brain is not easily reducible to its neurons. In fact, most things in Nature are non-atomic (e.g. their properties are not 1-to-1 to the composing substrate/medium). The fact you make this sort of blanket statement without evidence puts everything else you've stated into question.

    That being said, you have a very ignorant view of philosophy, especially ethics. If we went by your reasoning color is subjective, yet in reality color is just another word of photonic frequencies (or vibrations). And guess what? Color exists whether you observe it or not, especially to molecules and stars since color or photonic frequencies have a consequence to the behavior of both molecules and stars. Also, you're asserting a philosophical stance that anything that is not atomic or 1-to-1 to its substrate/medium then it does not exist (because anything that is subjective cannot exist in any form). That means hurricanes don't exist. DNA doesn't exist. My left foot doesn't exist. But you noticed how absurd that is? That if a thing isn't 'atomic' that it cannot exist does produces absurdities to things that are obviously real but do not have a 1-to-1 atomic existence to a given substrate/medium. The interesting fact about your arguments so far is that each and every one of them have been refuted in history. The fact that existence is identity and that consciousness is identification has held true and produced all the technology you are using today. Whether it's an automobile or the PC you write your specious arguments from, the fact that reality exists invariantly and that it is not dependent on any supposition of an atomic existence or I should state it more exacting that reality is not dependent on a 1-to-1 single level existence for all entities (including our mind and our ethics) makes all your arguments false at best, and at worse makes them a childish attempt to negate reality.

    If you wish to continue to believe in absurdities that knowledge is subjective, then please stop using your mind right now. Stop even using technology. Stop talking, stop reasoning, because it's all subjective and it's all incidental. In fact, I can go further and argue that if your assertions are true, then how can you know that I am not a figment of your mind? And that death is an illusion and so on. And most of all, stop wasting my time with silly arguments that can be easily toppled.


    -- Brede
  • ladyattisladyattis Member Posts: 1,273


    Originally posted by nurgles
    science is not objective, for scientific method to be applied it needs an observer, and there is no objective observer.

    That's not very logical. Lemme explain your error.

    You're asserting that science is subjective because of your claim that there is no objective observer. Let us define objective correctly. Objective: something that is an object or property of an object. Notice that objective has nothing to do with absolute, which is what you're implying in your statements. Absolute: static, always the same, etc. That's the definition that you're asserting. That being said, every mind is objective in its observations since no mind in human history can subvert perception. Understand that you have no control over perception. You cannot unsee a given object. You cannot unhear a sound. You cannot unfeel a touch. These are outside of the bounds of the mind due to Evolution as the mind came last for animals. To assert that the mind can invent perceptions is not even scientific. Lets look at hallucinations, it's interesting to note that someone can know whether they're hallucinating or not. How? Simple, often hallucinations, especially visual ones, seem to be very much unlike their given environment, whether it's a different 'lighting' or whether it's a matter of proportion. Often hallucinations like visual hallucinations are easily detected by their subjects as being such. In auditory hallucinations, a similar situation occurs. A distinct whispering voice heard in a crowd, or a roaring gruff voice in a silent room. It's such contrasts in auditory hallucinations that become cues to their subjects as to whether they're hallucinations or not. Plus, hallucinations never activate any given sense in themselves, rather hallucinations from a scientific standpoint active memories. So, it's Evolution that made us animals very much objective observers, otherwise we'd die quite more due to our senses than not.


    -- Brede

  • XeximaXexima Member UncommonPosts: 2,697

    There are some good people, then there are some bad.  The rest seem to be fairly indifferent.

  • CactusmanXCactusmanX Member Posts: 2,218

     

    Originally posted by ladyattis


     




    Actually, they're logically equivalent, especially if you take their Boolean values as a given.
    This isn't boolean logic they are not the same, is does not imply an ought.
    Again, we do know reality and just because we can't directly detect every state that's going on everywhere else does not make any judgment call at any time any less objective. Objective never has and never will mean absolute as you are asserting implicitly.
    We constantly filter information, we never get the full picture, the brain has to decide what information to keep and what to omit, so we can only experience things from a subjective perspective.  This is not to say it is entirely subjective.
    It is since I can reference things outside myself in regards to states and consequences.



    Feelings have much to do with ethics as they have to do with literature, which is almost zero. Or I should state it more exacting: feelings are inconsequential to ethics. Why? Because logic doesn't work on feelings, and ethics always depends on logic. How so, you might ask. It's pretty simple, anything that is in the form of an argument always depends on logic as a means to frame it. Whether it's an argument about the truth of Existence or the truth of the average weight of chicken eggs, it always depends on the factors found in logic to test them.
    Logic does not imply ethics, it is childish to think otherwise.  It is only when you take value judgements as a priori that you can use logic to build upon them, you assume too much.  Just because all living things desire to live does not mean living should be done, seperate your feelings from the object, life, and see what about life implies it should or should not die.
    Actually, a logical being could still see killing as bad. Why? Because the consequences of killing are obvious: non-existence. Also, you're confusing killing with murdering. Murdering is the act of intiating violent force (direct or otherwise) to end the life of another living being. Notably, living beings that can think. And it must be done in direct conflict to the will of said living being's own actions (meaning you can't murder someone who asked you to kill them because they're in so much pain from some wasting disease...).
    The consequences of killing are nonexistance but what about nonexistance implies it should not occur,  that is the point, you assume nonexistance should not be done, that is emotional and subjective.  The act of killing does not poccess bad in it, people impose that onto it because it conflicts with what they desire, to live. 
    Nope, we deem things bad/evil when they are in conflict with our primary function: living. You cannot exist for long if your ethics wind up wiping you out of the game of life. You seem to have a very ignorant view of how ethical theories work. Feelings are the after-effect, the report as it were, of the events/actions related to an ethical situation (which is all situations for a human being).
    Exactly, hence why they are subjective, the things are not bad or evil by themselves.  Objective morality would need for bad and evil to be inherrent in things for it to work.
    Then why is it universally known among all human beings that theft is wrong? Also, I can tell you why it is: because no one would accrue wealth. That's a functionalist argument against theft, btw, and it's never wrong as every significant civilization has always had institutions that respected property and punished thieves.
    Humans are very similar, our genetic programming makes us have many common wants and desires, that is why.  You can't take not being able to accrue wealth being bad as a given then say everybody has rules agaisnt it so it is bad obviously.  You are describing a common subjective feeling and completely ignoring that theft does not poccess the trait of bad, humans give that to it.
     That's a given to the human species. As for the inherent wrongness, by what definition do you call objective wrongness inherent? Do you mean 'atomically' in as much as it is a Prime Essence (Aristotlean/Platonic) or inherent as it is an invariant consequence of an argument based on logic? If you mean the former, you are correct, if you mean the latter you are wrong. On the latter I submit that if you cannot define things within regard to logic then it cannot be argued. Yet, we can frame all ethical situations within logic, therefore they can be argued, and thus can be proven right or wrong. The same follows for all arguments and even knowledge itself.
    Inherent meaning a property of the object, I do not believe in the prime essence of Plato, it is unsubstanciated.  Inherent properties of a tree include its height, diameter, density etc.   other properties like it's beauty or goodness are not physical properties of the tree, they are assigned to the tree by people.
    The fact you make such a diversion and never back it up with evidence proves something to me: you're not interested in learning. Metaphysics is the study of the primary functions of reality. A classic example of this is the law of identity (a thing is itself or A is A). If you think it's squishy, then please turn off your PC right now and turn in all your technology, because it's all based on the law of identity. And that includes even the in-door plumbing and TV set. (btw, I'm being a smart aleck, but you're being silly and not really objective)
    The problem I have with metaphysics is that it holds abstracts to be actual things.  Abstracts cannot be observed and I deny that abstracts actually exist, the only thing we can be somewhat certain of existing is the material.  Saying that a material thing is itself is quite different from using this to support ethics.
    No, you can't never get from subjective to objective in any sort of logic. Here's why. The consequential data has no means to be demarcated as objective as you claim because you start from subjective as the originate for the so-called objective 'data.'
    The concept of the scientific method is subjective though, it depends on gathering data via people which have imperfect senses, technology helps but still not perfect, so a great deal of science is interpretation.  I never said science gathers totaly objective data from a subjective experience, just that science is partially subjective and it is more objective than ethics because there is an object, unlike ethics which deals with abstracts.
    Essentially, it becomes a problem of how do you know by subjective means that something is objective? You can't if we start from your assumptions.
    Yeah we really can't, trying to completely observe an object can never really be done as we have imperfect senses and even our feelings change the way we interpret things we see, but we try the best we can with what we have.  Our senses are our only means to observe an object, the problem with morality is that it is not an object it is a qualifier we construct, and even though you disagree is emotionally driven based on common functions of organisms.
     In reality, science is always objective, period and end of story.
    No it isn't, like I said.
    The same goes for ethics because we start from invariant premises which are metaphysical primaries (aka law of identity and law of causality) to get invariant consequences. Also, science is predictive, thus we can make invariant conclusions then test from them to see if the premises lead to said conclusions. In essence, all knowledge by the laws of identity and causality allow for even science and ethics to be objective (because we're something (identified) and other things are something else (identified)).
    Assuming abstractions are things, which is the biggest problem.  Take trees, no matter what I think of the tree I can observe the same traits and the same object.  Ethics are much different not only can I not observe bad, I have to define and then categorize it but if I change my mind about what good or bad is I no longer can categorize the action the way I use too.  What you are doing is defining bad then using it to try and prove that something is bad, sure if I went by your definition, then I would always agree with you, but where did the definition come from, not from the object, but how it makes you feel.  The difference, killing results in nonexistance, true I can observe the same thing over and over again, killing is bad because it results in nonexistance, false, this is an opinion, it does not matter if following this rule helps people to survive or if it has consistant consequences we are not talking about what is but what should be done, and there is nothing about killing that implies a should other than your own feelings about yourself or others dieing.
    Let me stop you right here. The brain is not equivalent to the electronic computer, ever. I am a CS major with a focus on AI theory. You need to stop reading the pop science magazines, okay? The brain is analog. The computer is digital. That is enough in itself to make them different. But lets go further, what is the bit 'stream' of the brain? There is none, not even in the electrical impulses that are instigated by hormones activating neurons seem to correlate to any 'string' of impulses. It's pretty clear from the standpoint of neurology that the brain operates on an emergent principle that has little to do with the individual neurons. This fact is what makes a brain unlike a computer. A computer is easily reducible to its circuitry, the brain is not easily reducible to its neurons. In fact, most things in Nature are non-atomic (e.g. their properties are not 1-to-1 to the composing substrate/medium). The fact you make this sort of blanket statement without evidence puts everything else you've stated into question.
    I ment in how your brain has things like programs, called instincts, that it obeys, the structure is of course not the same.
    That being said, you have a very ignorant view of philosophy, especially ethics.
    Philosophy isn't truth, abstract thinking cannot determine what is.  Unless you provide physical evidence for ethics there is no reason to believe they exist.
     If we went by your reasoning color is subjective, yet in reality color is just another word of photonic frequencies (or vibrations).
    Color is an illusion, wave length not so much.
     And guess what? Color exists whether you observe it or not, especially to molecules and stars since color or photonic frequencies have a consequence to the behavior of both molecules and stars. Also, you're asserting a philosophical stance that anything that is not atomic or 1-to-1 to its substrate/medium then it does not exist (because anything that is subjective cannot exist in any form). That means hurricanes don't exist. DNA doesn't exist. My left foot doesn't exist. But you noticed how absurd that is?
    Saying a hurricane destroyed city XY is not subjective saying hurricanes are scary is.  True what I see is subjective to a point, I may miss details and information or misinterpret but I am observing an object, think of it as a older TV less resolution, there by less detail, but basically the same picture.  Objective morality is like the hurricanes are scary statement, scary is not a thing to be observed, it is felt. 
    That if a thing isn't 'atomic' that it cannot exist does produces absurdities to things that are obviously real but do not have a 1-to-1 atomic existence to a given substrate/medium. The interesting fact about your arguments so far is that each and every one of them have been refuted in history. The fact that existence is identity and that consciousness is identification has held true and produced all the technology you are using today. Whether it's an automobile or the PC you write your specious arguments from, the fact that reality exists invariantly and that it is not dependent on any supposition of an atomic existence or I should state it more exacting that reality is not dependent on a 1-to-1 single level existence for all entities (including our mind and our ethics) makes all your arguments false at best, and at worse makes them a childish attempt to negate reality.
    Nothing childish about what I said, All I said is that we never really experience a thing in its entirety, our brain fills in gaps constantly, what we know comes from what we can comprehend, our brains simplify data imput.  The knowledge we have is simplified.  This is actually a different topic than are morals objective or not.
    If you wish to continue to believe in absurdities that knowledge is subjective, then please stop using your mind right now. Stop even using technology. Stop talking, stop reasoning, because it's all subjective and it's all incidental. In fact, I can go further and argue that if your assertions are true, then how can you know that I am not a figment of your mind? And that death is an illusion and so on. And most of all, stop wasting my time with silly arguments that can be easily toppled.
    I never said knowledge is subjective, just not completely objective like people like to think, your brain interprets things, it does not just absorb.  This is getting off topic though.
    It is really quite simple, since the physical is our best way to determine what is or what things are like, still not perfect, then to prove that ethics are objective you would need to find evidence of ethics existing inherently in something.  Study a killing and calculate the badness of it or observe the the should not, remember don't use you opinion or feelings, nothing but material and your senses.  Do that and I concede the morality is objective, you have the burden of proof not me but frankly I don't think it is possible.

     

    Also if you respond try not to write as much and I won't either this is getting crazy long.

    Don't you worry little buddy. You're dealing with a man of honor. However, honor requires a higher percentage of profit

  • nurglesnurgles Member Posts: 840

    Originally posted by ladyattis


     

    Originally posted by nurgles

    science is not objective, for scientific method to be applied it needs an observer, and there is no objective observer.

     

    That's not very logical. Lemme explain your error.



    You're asserting that science is subjective because of your claim that there is no objective observer. Let us define objective correctly. Objective: something that is an object or property of an object. Notice that objective has nothing to do with absolute, which is what you're implying in your statements. Absolute: static, always the same, etc. That's the definition that you're asserting.

    What i don't understand here is how the properties of an object can not be static, and by static i assume static outside of time, so if you are going to describe an object completely all of time is part of that description.

    That being said, every mind is objective in its observations since no mind in human history can subvert perception.

    um, no, the placebo effect is a good example of this, as is the need for double blinds in medicle testing. to elaborate, to see if a drug is working we need to desighn the experiment so that the subject does not perceive whether or not they have been give the drug or the blank so that they report their perceived responce to the drug in a statisticly significant manner relating to the actual effects of the drug. People are so good at picking up the clues as to weather oor not they received the drug from the administrater that we must prevent the person adminstering the drug from knowing if it is the placebo or the drug because in knowing, they give away perceivable clues that affect the subject and the outcome of the experiment.

    to get a scientific result we have to subvert the oportunity of the subject to perceive if they recieved the placebo or the drug in order to sabotage the impact that their perceptions have on their response.

    Understand that you have no control over perception. You cannot unsee a given object. You cannot unhear a sound. You cannot unfeel a touch.

    sure but you can misinterpret and misremmeber. once you have that perception you can never repeat it exactly, it is a single event.

    These are outside of the bounds of the mind due to Evolution as the mind came last for animals.

    I think by mind you are talking about abstraction of identity, the abstraction of communication, and tbstract of tool use.

    To assert that the mind can invent perceptions is not even scientific.

    Actually it is very scientific, we have statistical evidence and must incorporate it as a fact in our experimental desighn.

    The simplest example of this is measurement. i give you an object that has been measured as being 7.500mm with a very accurate device, now i give that object a ruler that has the finest graduations of 1 mm. so if you measure it you can only say that it is 8mm or 7mm, if i do this experiment with 100 people that i tell that i don't know its length, half will say 7 and half will say 8. now if i give the same experiment to 100 that are told (through a double blind) that it is known to be 8 and another hundred that it is known to 7 then you will get a majority of people saying they measured it as being what you told them it was.

    Lets look at hallucinations, it's interesting to note that someone can know whether they're hallucinating or not. How? Simple, often hallucinations, especially visual ones, seem to be very much unlike their given environment, whether it's a different 'lighting' or whether it's a matter of proportion. Often hallucinations like visual hallucinations are easily detected by their subjects as being such. In auditory hallucinations, a similar situation occurs. A distinct whispering voice heard in a crowd, or a roaring gruff voice in a silent room. It's such contrasts in auditory hallucinations that become cues to their subjects as to whether they're hallucinations or not. Plus, hallucinations never activate any given sense in themselves, rather hallucinations from a scientific standpoint active memories.

    this is not my experience of hallucinations. while some are indeed of that outstanding contrast with reality, the majority are actually very beleivable. it is only through a process of rationalisation that i am able to distinguish them as a  hallucination.

    So, it's Evolution that made us animals very much objective observers, otherwise we'd die quite more due to our senses than not.

    The problem i have with this statment is a weak logical argument, suggesting that sometime we do die through our mislead senses, which undermines the "objective" part of the statement. so it implies we are not always objective.

    And we do die quite a lot due to our perceptions being comprimised, driving under the influence of alcohol or even just fatigued.





    -- Brede

    nice discussion thanks.

    about science and objectivity, quantum mechanics has shown us to be unable to be objective. We are part of the system and we must take that into account. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle is where we had to face up to this as a fact, which can be examplified by wave-particle duality. when trying to know what light is we determined that it comes in discreate quantized packages, photons, but light also has wave properties, so it showes interference patternes etc. so  if it is a particle it has possition but asking where is a wave is nonsensicle as it distributed over a wide area, you can measure its frequency though. so what it really? it can't be both can it? the thing is we can choose to observe it either as a wave or as a particle, so our decision affects the nature of the object observed.

    so the observation itsself affects the object or the nature of the object depends on it being observed.We can not observe an object without affecting it. An objective understanding of an object is unobtainable because we will change its nature by observing it.

  • ladyattisladyattis Member Posts: 1,273


    This isn't boolean logic they are not the same, is does not imply an ought.

    From the philosophers of this age, it is generally accepted an ought implies an is.

    We constantly filter information, we never get the full picture, the brain has to decide what information to keep and what to omit, so we can only experience things from a subjective perspective. This is not to say it is entirely subjective.

    Only in part, the majority of the information is parsed by the nervous system itself in regards to this. Even your eyes 'filter' data out all the time as a means for our survival.

    Logic does not imply ethics, it is childish to think otherwise. It is only when you take value judgements as a priori that you can use logic to build upon them, you assume too much. Just because all living things desire to live does not mean living should be done, seperate your feelings from the object, life, and see what about life implies it should or should not die.

    I never asserted that logic implies ethics, rather I stated that ethics implies logic (L -> E != E -> L). Please parse the difference. Also, your assertion that living things shouldn't live in the part stating that to live does not mean living should be done is stupid. The should is your assertion alone. I'm stating only the obvious fact of living things everywhere on planet Earth, in that all of us living things struggle to live. Sometimes we're good at it, sometimes not so good at it. To say that we shouldn't live is you making a positive assertion. I'm simply making a descriptive negative statement on the nature of living things. You can't say a living thing cannot live if it is alive. Just as I much as I cannot state that a thing isn't made of a certain element and yet not be that element. You really really are not getting the point of the ethics I support and the fact you're go further into post-modernistic insanity shows your lack of willingness, as I stated in a previous reply to you, to not learn.

    The consequences of killing are nonexistance but what about nonexistance implies it should not occur, that is the point, you assume nonexistance should not be done, that is emotional and subjective. The act of killing does not poccess bad in it, people impose that onto it because it conflicts with what they desire, to live.

    Because if a living thing's life is extinguished it cannot continue. Non-existence for a living thing is the worse possible case for it end. All things being equal, even you wouldn't willingly kill yourself if you were of good health. Would you? I mean the logical consequences of your argument that murdering isn't bad is really stupid, because it asserts a value system that is anti-human and even to an extreme interpretation, anti-existence/Nature. Also, you don't own the lives of others as to force them not to exist just because you fancy it. Or because they just happen to be in the way. The functionalistic argument is rather concrete on this part of it too. If I killed you and anyone I met just because you got in the way between what I wanted, the entire structure of human living would implode on itself. Especially modern human civilization since the majority of the knowledge set required to maintain it is too large for even a population of say... 1000 people to maintain it and use it. The functionalistic argument refutes your statement that murdering isn't bad just by looking at the consequences of it. The virtue/egoistical argument stands on the point that all human beings own themselves in whole; even babies and mentally challenged people own themselves. To subvert their will is to assert that they have no will and thus no mind. In converse, it implies that the perpetrator has a superior status in Nature which cannot be proven by any scientific or logical means A murderer can think just as well as a child. There's no magical gap between them, thus there's no superiority of either over the other.



    Exactly, hence why they are subjective, the things are not bad or evil by themselves. Objective morality would need for bad and evil to be inherrent in things for it to work.

    No. Absolutes need external referants to exist for them to be true. Again, how many times must I explain the distinction between that which is absolute and that which is objective? Objective is rooted in the word object. Objects can be physical, material, mental, and etc. What makes them objects in the first place is that their existences are distinct from each other. That each one has an identity onto itself (but not one that is necessarily independent from its substrate/medium). Ethics, Knowledge, Science, and so on are always objective because they are always distinctive in their identities. Absolutes by comparison are things always given. An example of an absolute is that there is no such thing an atom without a nucleus. Or am EM field without photons. They're given as always true, and cannot be untrue. Objects can be either true or false in their nature (position, momentum, and etc). As such that's why we see an existence where things occur (causality is a result of identity and non-contradiction).

    Humans are very similar, our genetic programming makes us have many common wants and desires, that is why.

    No, not even close. Genes make only one thing: proteins. Meat. Very very simple components they are. There's no meaningful magical programs in them. What makes them possible is that these proteins work together (about 1000 chains worth to make a living cell) to produce life. And life is never reducible to digital components or circuits. Take out any of the proteins in the chain of modern cells, they die. Period and end of story. The ancestor cells may have been far simpler and simply due to natural selection got more complex when it became a fit niche to occupy, but in itself it does not imply that life is digital. In fact, it implies that life is analog, continuous and smooth in its progression. Even Evolution moves through normal curves in its speciation through history. There's no case every in human history of any gene controlling any thought, or any value. Also, you're making a contradiction in your argument here. You're implying that genes contain values, but at the same time you are rejecting that these values have meaning. You can't have it both ways. Either they have meaning or they do not have meaning (values that is). You can't say that it's an accident of Nature that these values exist at the genetic level by your argument because Nature is a pesky little thing as that things emerge not because they're beautiful or wonderful, rather because of necessity of a given phenomena. Essentially, Nature is weakly teleological (or anthropic[sp?]).

    Inherent meaning a property of the object, I do not believe in the prime essence of Plato, it is unsubstanciated. Inherent properties of a tree include its height, diameter, density etc. other properties like it's beauty or goodness are not physical properties of the tree, they are assigned to the tree by people.

    Sorry, but properties of a thing can be emergent like the dimensions and composition of a tree. These emerge from the constants given for the tree, which then interact with their environment (and the other 'objects' in that environment) to result in the given tree in its distinctive form. Properties like this would be called 2nd level properties. The mind is a 2nd level property, which produces other properties (concepts/thoughts), which can be a deeper branching set of Nth properties. All which can point back through the tree of properties back to the substrate as not necessarily the magical cause or originate, but as the primary. Properties in themselves do not ever need to be a material or physical primary to be real. If that were so, then mathematics is not real (hint: the golden spiral is found everywhere in Nature).

    The problem I have with metaphysics is that it holds abstracts to be actual things. Abstracts cannot be observed and I deny that abstracts actually exist, the only thing we can be somewhat certain of existing is the material. Saying that a material thing is itself is quite different from using this to support ethics.

    No it doesn't. Only certain forms of metaphysics assert a Platonic view point. Abstracts or universals can evolve from the fact that identities cannot be non-distinctive (or contradictory in themselves). The fact you assert a gross generalization about the nature of metaphysics shows me you probably haven't studied it to any degree of intensity beyond a book or a introductory 100-200 level course at a college. That being said, I invite you to study metaphysics of other philosophers and schools of philosophy such as the work of Epicurus, Locke, and even Ayn Rand (who's really in many cases a reformed Aristotlean, but her take on universals makes her far more different from Aristotle and his school).

    The concept of the scientific method is subjective though, it depends on gathering data via people which have imperfect senses, technology helps but still not perfect, so a great deal of science is interpretation.

    No, it's not. Because a concept either pertains to something or it does not apply at all. A classic example of this is the concept of counting. Counting applies to all things, but not one thing in particular. That's the beauty of such an abstracted concept like counting in that we can instantiate it for all things that exist (or will exist in the future or have existed in the past). The same follows for the scientific method as it pertains to real physical and material things which come under the use of it. There is no such case where science or knowledge is ever subjective because subjectivity implies that identities are not distinctive (hint: they are always distinctive).

    Assuming abstractions are things, which is the biggest problem. Take trees, no matter what I think of the tree I can observe the same traits and the same object.

    I can observe things related to trees both as entities and as concepts. You're the one that makes the assumption that you can't. Prove it without contradictions, please.

    Ethics are much different not only can I not observe bad, I have to define and then categorize it but if I change my mind about what good or bad is I no longer can categorize the action the way I use too.

    I cannot observe the physical state changes in a given element, but they are measureable none the less. In fact, the lack of sight of state changes doesn't refute them because they have other effects on the world. In the case of 'bad', the effects are applicable to living things that are rational beings as well, so we get to see the results of 'bad' all the time. People dead in streets, people defrauded by other people, and so on. There's really no argument in your statement so far. Rather it's another generalization on your part and the lack of intellectual fortitude to admit (on your part) that you are wrong.

    I ment in how your brain has things like programs, called instincts, that it obeys, the structure is of course not the same.

    The brain doesn't work on instincts. In fact there's no real instinct in any given animal. Let me give you an example. The ability to walk upright in humans seems like something that's a given, right? Well it's only a given due to the physiological features of the spine and legs, but beyond that there's really no clue as to why we walk upright. The fact of the matter, the function of walking itself (really a controlled falling motion...) depends on the concerted effort of the nervous system to trigger the right motions at the right times. It has little to do with instinct or even genetics. It evolves due to the individual forcing the effort of walking at a young age. In fact, there are a few cases where perfectly healthy children never learned to walk. It wasn't because they were really dumb, but that they really had no incentive to learn to walk, thus the nerves related to walking in the hips never formed. There's no instinct to walk there. It's all about choices a given human being takes. A human has the free will to think otherwise, thus has the free will to be as stupid as to never learn to walk despite the physiological features that show our primary mode of locamotion. Even birds do not have an instinct to fly, they have to learn. That is the telling feature of why instinct doesn't exist for us and generally for birds. Also, we can unlearn things like the reflexes related to covering our heads if we get exposed to playing base ball games as a child or even as an adult (it simply takes longer), or to stop having a nervous tick. And so on. These refute the whole argument for instinct. And even if we have instinct, instinct is not a program. It has no atomic features in the genetic structure. It evolved as an emergent property. Programs in computers have no emergent properties in themselves. In fact, that's kinda the issue with digital computers in AI theory, they can't "grow up" (or learn).

    Objective morality is like the hurricanes are scary statement, scary is not a thing to be observed, it is felt.

    No they're not. Because objective morality depends on there being an argument. The feeling of being scared is again the after-effect of the event. Also, being scared of things that can kill you pretty much proves that you know that they can kill you (hurricanes and the like). And it's not fun knowing that you're experiencing something that might kill you like a hurricane. It only makes the emphasis of objective knowledge and ethics more so true than ever, because we can observe before the feeling of wrongness or of being the consequences of a given phenomena. That's the difference. Only you believe that feelings precede logical conclusions or analysis. I have given you examples that refute that statement. Now, please move on and accept you are wrong.

    The knowledge we have is simplified. This is actually a different topic than are morals objective or not.
    Non-sequiteur in that you're mistaking incomplete knowledge for subjective knowledge. The fact that knowledge can be condensed to simpler forms does not make it subjective. In fact it makes it objective due to that we can isolate parts of identities of a given object to learn about it. And even to learn about properties that extend beyond the single given object (into a larger meta-class of things like the given object only in the given property).

    It is really quite simple, since the physical is our best way to determine what is or what things are like, still not perfect, then to prove that ethics are objective you would need to find evidence of ethics existing inherently in something.

    No, because nature is not atomic. Please accept that fact. I've pointed this out more than one time. You keep ignoring it. So, I'm giving you an ultimatum to prove that Nature is atomic and non-emergent, or this conversation is over. Because you really show no knowledge of anything in regards to this argument or multiple arguments.

    Also if you respond try not to write as much and I won't either this is getting crazy long.

    It's getting long because you won't admit your flaws in your arguments.

    Here's the simpler form of everything above as a series of questions.

    Is Nature emergent? Yes/No?

    Is the Mind an emergent property of animals? Yes/No?

    Is knowledge, ethics, and logic emergent properties of the Mind? Yes/No?

    There's really no grey area at this point for me, because if you continue to wish to joust in favor of your particular delusion in spite of the evidence and consistent arguments (which you never have refuted) given so far, then I'm simply going to file thirteen you (block/ignore). Because I have better things to do than deal with someone who is not very educated and is also very stubborn.


    Here I go to debate your alter-ego on another issue.


    What i don't understand here is how the properties of an object can not be static, and by static i assume static outside of time, so if you are going to describe an object completely all of time is part of that description.

    Objective does not mean static or outside of time. Objective means it's distinct. I cannot confuse the property of redness for blueness in color. I cannot confuse the property of being a lower intensity sound versus a higher intensity sound in regards to sound waves. And so on. You seem to make the common subjectivist error that objectivity implies an aetheric state of absolutism. It does not. Please correct this error in your knowledge set before continuing.

    um, no, the placebo effect is a good example of this...

    No, it's not. That's not perception, that's conception and it's also immuno-response. In fact, in the majority of studies related to the placebo effect is that it's a real physical phenomenon that doctors are trying to exploit quite often. You seem to not be very well versed on knowing this considering they're working on in cases of Diabetes and the allergies.

    sure but you can misinterpret and misremmeber.

    Perception is also not thought.

    I think by mind you are talking about abstraction of identity, the abstraction of communication, and tbstract of tool use.

    I mean the mind. Or as Rand pointed out: existence is identity, consciousness is identification.

    Actually it is very scientific, we have statistical evidence and must incorporate it as a fact in our experimental desighn.

    No, we don't have any scientific evidence. In fact, all evidence points towards that perception is an involuntary nervous system set of operations. A classic example of this is the ability for birds to fly through thickets of tree branches, but yet they invariably hit windows dead on (hint: their eyes cannot saccade so they can't catch the subtle refractions that light gets as it passes through glass...). If birds some how can magically trick themselves into seeing the glass, then you might have an argument, but they can't so your argument is refuted in this case.


    this is not my experience of hallucinations.

    Unless you're asserting that you're a neurologist or neural anatomist, your experiences are not factual.

    The problem i have with this statment is a weak logical argument, suggesting that sometime we do die through our mislead senses, which undermines the "objective" part of the statement. so it implies we are not always objective.

    No, I never asserted that our senses trick us, rather that our senses cannot pick up everything. Can you pick up radiation? No, but you can smell the urine that a wolf or bear laid down to mark its territory. Evolution didn't select anecestors in our genetic history that could sense radiation, because there wasn't enough of it to make evolutionary fit to fill that given niche of sensation.

    And we do die quite a lot due to our perceptions being comprimised, driving under the influence of alcohol or even just fatigued.

    That's not perception being compromised, that's two things totally different. First, your judgment centers in the neocortex being knackered up by the alchie. Second, your nervous system fires slower due to the alcohol content of your blood stream. And I can add a third factor, muscles respond slower with alcohol of any content level in the blood stream (alcohol acts as a weak muscle relaxant).



    about science and objectivity, quantum mechanics has shown us to be unable to be objective.

    No, QM hasn't. QM shows us that given measures have a quantity to them via the Heinsenberg Uncertainty Principle. Lemme explain it very easy for you. Imagine an set of atoms as billiard balls on a billiard table. You have a smaller, lighter cue ball to represent a photon. For you to measure the momentum, mass, etc of the 'atoms' you have to hit them with photons. Well that's the kicker, you always will add to a given atom's energy state when you hit them with photons to measure them, whether it's indirectly or directly. In fact, it's this well known phenomenon that gets misattributed by non-scientists some magical subjectivity in the field. In fact, it proves that it's very objective because we can measure how much disturbance you could make in a given measurement of atoms and their energy states. It's a constant like k (entropy) is for thermodynamics. There's no magic rabbit hole, dude. I suggest you stop reading the new age novels and start picking up at least a copy of Scientific American.


    -- Brede
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